Fun with COVID-19 reporting in MA (and elsewhere)

For the 7th straight week, new hospitalizations escalated further. Time period             - new hospitalizations (not increased headcount, these are newly admitted patients) June 2021                -  15.0 July 2021                 -  19.0 (last week of the month was 34) August 2021            -  61.1 (1st week of the month was 42.7 and it increased steadily to 72 the last week) September 2021      -  72.4 October 2021          -  60.3 Oct 31-Nov 6 2021 -  58.7  Nov 7-13 2021        -  68.1 Nov 14-20 2021      -  88.3 Nov 21-27 2021      -100.1 Nov 28-Dec 4 2021 -122.4 Dec 5-11 2021         -162.9 Dec 12-18 2021       -177.9 Dec 19-26 2021       -191....

Yesterday I predicted that by this Wednesday we would have seen enough information about last week's cases to know that it was the highest week for cases since the start of the pandemic... it did not take that long.  Today we know that last week, at 6,233 cases per day (90.4 cases per 100,000 people per day) currently and still rising, we've beaten are old high of 6073 cases per day the week of January 3.  Last winter saw a huge increase the weeks of December 27, 2020 and January 3, 2021 as the spread ballooned due to gatherings for Christmas and around New Years... what are the chances we see this again but from a significantly higher starting point (compare the currently known 6,233 cases per day last week to 3,782 cases per day the week of December 20, 2020). We also currently have more COVID-19 patients in hospitals than any time after the first wave except for the period from December 12, 2020 through January 29, 2021.... and that range is shrinking fast.... and the perio...

On Wednesday I posted that the death rate last week was lower than the preceding week... last night we found out that wasn't the case with the death rate being the highest yet since mid-May and today it inched up again.  It's still in the single digits but, at 9.4 deaths per day, it's getting closer to the low we saw last summer of 12.7.  By the way, August 15-21 saw 5.57 deaths per day and August 22-28 saw 7.42 deaths per day... so 9.4 deaths per day for last week is continuing a problematic trend. Stay safe. Stay informed.

Back on August 3, I predicted that we would reach levels seen at the peak of our first wave by the end of August.  The good news is that things have slowed since then and we are very unlikely to reach that level.  With that said, we're still very deep into October 2020 levels of spread and the week before last still doubled the number of cases we saw from 2 weeks prior to that.  Last week, as of tonight's report has reached the average 1015.7 cases per day that we saw October 18-24 2020 and there's potential to reach the level from the final week of October 2020 of 1165.7 cases per day. June 13-19 2021 -  72.0 cases per day (1.04 cases per 100,000 people per day) June 20-26 2021 -  66.0 cases per day (0.96 cases per 100,000 people per day)  Jun 27-Jul 3 2021- 78.9 cases per day (1.14 cases per 100,000 people per day)  July 4-10 2021  -  117.6 cases per day (1.71 cases per 100,000 people per day)  July 11-17 2021-  263.7 cases per da...

Alright, so, let's start off with the good news: my prediction that last week would, by now, be known to have reached reached the average 1015.7 cases per day that we saw October 18-24 2020 did not come to fruition.... we currently have an average of 988.7 for last week.   So, that's the good news, right?  What about the bad news?  Well, while this is less than that week of October 18-24 2020, it also is 38% higher than the previous week (Jul 25-31 was 716 cases per day). This is good news of a sort, because the week-over-week increase percentages that we're seeing are slowing down.  We went from 124% to 81% to 50% and now may be as low as 38% (though it's likely that will creep up ever so slightly still). Ok, we had good news, we had bad news, we had good news... you know there's another shoe about to drop and here it is: Deaths this week have been 6-8 every day thus far.  The last time we saw 4 days that were higher than 5 deaths on each day was back in t...

We now know that last week was the second week in a row with an average daily increase to hospital use in the low double digits... these are two of only three weeks this entire calendar year that had double digit increases.  In terms of new hospitalizations, that number is also increasing (though we only get new data on this once per week so we're about a week behind).  We went for 7 weeks of averaging 11-18 new hospitalizations per day to the week of Jul 25-Jul 31 seeing an average of 34 new hospitalizations per day. July 25-Jul 31 was nearly double the prior week and the prior week had been a 7-week high. The good news is that, while we've only seen 1 day since March 18, 2020 where nobody died of COVID-19, we're back down to seeing an average daily death rate of 2 again as of the week before last and potentially just below 2 for last week (we're still waiting for data on Saturday's deaths and any given day of last week may still increase).   Finally, cases.  Last ...

Yesterday I predicted that today's report would show that last week surpassed the average 699.4 cases per day we saw the week of October 11-17 2020 and, shockingly, it has.  Below are the updated numbers.   June 13-19 2021 - 71.9 cases per day (1.04 cases per 100,000 people per day) June 20-26 2021 - 66.1 cases per day (0.96 cases per 100,000 people per day)  Jun 27-Jul 3 2021-78.7 cases per day (1.14 cases per 100,000 people per day)  July 4-10 2021  - 117.6 cases per day (1.71 cases per 100,000 people per day)  July 11-17 2021- 263.1 cases per day (3.82 cases per 100,000 people per day)  July 18-24 2021- 476.9 cases per day (6.92 cases per 100,000 people per day)  July 25-31 2021- 705.6 cases per day (10.24 cases per 100,000 people per day)  Will we reach October 18-24 2020 levels with this week?  Well, Sunday and Monday already stand at 500 and 737 cases respectively, with days left before they stop increasing.  For comparis...

Yesterday I predicted that today's report would show that last week surpassed the average 633.1 cases per day from October 4-10 2020... I was right.  I now predict that tomorrow's report will see last week surpassing the 699.4 cases per day we saw the week of October 11-17 2020 and that by week starting 29-Aug, we'll be beyond the peek of the first wave in 2020 (2176.9 cases per day) (which we'll know by 10-Sep).  Below are the updated numbers.   June 13-19 2021 - 71.9 cases per day (1.04 cases per 100,000 people per day) June 20-26 2021 - 66.0 cases per day (0.96 cases per 100,000 people per day)  Jun 27-Jul 3 2021-78.7 cases per day (1.14 cases per 100,000 people per day)  July 4-10 2021  - 117.6 cases per day (1.71 cases per 100,000 people per day)  July 11-17 2021- 263.1 cases per day (3.81 cases per 100,000 people per day)  July 18-24 2021- 476.6 cases per day (6.91 cases per 100,000 people per day)  July 25-31 2021- 695.6 cases per day ...

Based on last Friday's data, I predicted over the weekend that by today we'd see that last Wednesday's case count would be at least 700 and that by 2 days from now we'd see Thursday and Friday of last week join in on that level. Let's check in on the first part of that prediction now: Wednesday of last week has not only reached 700 but has gone far past with 793 cases.  Not to be outdone, Thursday has already reached 839.  Last week already has an average of 623.7 cases per day or 9 cases per 100,000 people per day... this is yet another huge increase with days to go before we see the numbers stop increasing regularly.  By the way, even the previous 3 weeks saw some increases... July 4-10 increased by about 2 cases per day and July 11-17 increased by about 4 cases per day, and July 18-24 increased by 18 cases per day. June 13-19 2021 - 71.9 cases per day (1.04 cases per 100,000 people per day) June 20-26 2021 - 66.0 cases per day (0.96 cases per 100,000 people per d...

Yesterday I said I expect that by the end of this week we'd find that last week had more than 450 cases per day on average... if you wagered that that prediction would be realized today already, you won.  Below is the updated progression for the last 6 weeks: June 13-19 2021 - 71.9 cases per day (1.04 cases per 100,000 people per day) June 20-26 2021 - 65.9 cases per day (0.96 cases per 100,000 people per day) Jun 27-Jul 3 2021-78.7 cases per day (1.14 cases per 100,000 people per day) July 4-10 2021  - 115.7 cases per day (1.68 cases per 100,000 people per day) July 11-17 2021- 258.9 cases per day (3.76 cases per 100,000 people per day) July 18-24 2021- 459.6 cases per day (6.67 cases per 100,000 people per day) We also now know that last week saw a further tick up in the most laggiest of lagging indicators, deaths, slowly returning to where we were at the start of June.  June 13-19 2021 - 4.1 deaths per day June 20-26 2021 - 1.9 deaths per day Jun 27-Jul 3 202...

Just yesterday I said that I expected that, by the end of this week, we would find that last week did indeed pass the 229.2 cases per day that would mark a doubling week-over-week.  Today, we now know, with days left of seeing additional cases come in for last week, last week not only reached 229.2 but went even further to reach 245.1.  That means we more than doubled the previous week and more than tripled the week before that.  Last week has now brought us from the 1.something cases per 100,000 people per day back up to 3.6 cases per 100,000 people per day.  Again, the last time we doubled week-over-week was March 2020 as we started our first wave. But last week wasn't just a bad week for cases and hospitalizations (see yesterday's post about the hospitalizations)... yesterday I called out deaths, the laggiest of lagging indicators, as the bright spot in that we were still only seeing fewer than 2 people die per day.... Today we see that last week did indeed buck t...

So, last week I said that I expected that last Wednesday would by now reach higher than the 103 which was the highest single day from June 11 through till last week... and boy has it.  At 153, last Wednesday is now higher than any other day going back to June 5th.  But again, individual days aren't nearly as important as how days average together.... and that story is just as bad with last week's average already sitting at 95.6 cases per day (1.4 cases per 100,000 people per day).  That's nearly as bad as the 97.3 cases per day that we saw the week of June 6 and is 45.4% higher than the week of June 20 and 21% higher than just the preceding week of June 27.  And the cases aren't finished coming in yet. In case you're one of those people that feels that spread isn't bad on it's own, let's head over to hospitalizations.  The decrease in headcount at hospitals has long been near stagnant and in the last 3 weeks there's been nearly no change....and for t...

Good news on the cases per day and deaths per day fronts... bad news on the hospitalizations and vaccinations front... Though we certainly have slowed our decrease in cases from what we saw a few weeks ago, they aren't slowing quite as quickly as I had been expecting at the start of the week.  I had expecting the week of 23-Jun-2021 to reach an average of 220 cases per day.  It now appears we won't reach that and may actually stay below 200, though just barely. Average new cases per day by week, then and now (and with per 100,000 people in parenthesis to bring in line with the outside MA and the more local reviews I've been doing): Week of 19-Apr-2020:  2118.4 (30.7) Week of 25-Apr-2020:  1773.0 (25.7) Week of 3-May-2020:   1405.9 (20.4) Week of 10-May-2020: 1073.4 (15.6) Week of 17-May-2020:   852.0 (12.4) Week of 24-May-2020:   498.3   (7.2) Week of 31-May-2020:   348.0   (5.0) Week of 07-Jun-2020:     239.6   (3.5) Week...

While we had a rough end of this week with the CDC issuing guidance that was predictably dumbed down and generalized by everyone, and was not based on risks to the populace but instead based on the push to get people vaccinated, we did see that things continued to get better here in MA. Cases continued to decrease.  Note that cases are still coming in, and indeed we found roughly 14 more cases the previous 2 weeks since the last time I reported out these numbers, but it's still pretty clear that there is continued slow in spread. Apr 4-10 daily average: 1866 Apr 11-17 daily average: 1577 Apr 18-24 daily average: 1210 Apr 25-May 1 daily average: 1013 May 2-8 daily average: 731 Deaths per day look like we are below 10 per day, which we now know would be the first time since March 2020 given that the one week we thought had been below 10 per day before May 2-8 now is known to have 10.3 deaths per day.  With May 2-8 having only 8.3 daily deaths, it seems reasonable to believe that...

Just wanted to quickly take note that I was both right and wrong at the start of last week in my predictions. I had predicted that cases last week would be higher than the week before.  They weren't.  That said, the decrease slowed.   Apr 4-10 daily average: 1866 Apr 11-17 daily average: 1577 Apr 18-24 daily average: 1208 Apr 25-May 1 daily average: 1011 The good news is that it does seem like we're still decreasing as we move into May, with this last week (May 2-8) appearing to be tracking lower than the preceding week.  We likely won't see a decrease of 300, but a decrease of 200 doesn't seem unlikely... and this would bring us to mid-May 2020 and mid-Oct 2020 levels. So... that was the good news.  The bad news is what I was right about.  Deaths had another barely-there increase the last week of April, though we're still below where we were at the start of April. Apr 4-10 daily average: 12.3 Apr 11-17 daily average: 9.7 Apr 18-24 daily average: 10.3 Apr 2...

Technically, the week of March 28 represented a fourth week in a row of increased cases, but that week's increase was barely an increase. Week of Feb 28 daily average: 1,343.7 Week of Mar 7 daily average: 1,387.7 (only a 3% increase week-over-week) Week of Mar 14 daily average: 1,626 (17% increase week-over-week) Week of Mar 21 daily average: 1,962.7 (20% increase week-over-week) Week of Mar 28 daily average: 1,964 (0.06% increase week-over-week) So... Good news: the increase has slowed down...  Bad news: we're still nearly at the rates we were during our first peak (we reached 2,177.1 the week of Apr 12, 2020) Also... Good news: deaths per day are still declining Bad news: we were still seeing that hospital headcount, ICU usage, and intubations were all increasing as of the week of Mar 28.  Good news: hospital headcount appears to be either decreasing based on the first 5 days of this past week (the only days we have counts for)  Bad news: ICU usage and intubations are c...

This past Saturday, I predicted that last week would turn out to be a third straight week of increased cases. Shockingly (not even remotely shocking), this was already known to be the case on Monday evening.  Today we know th at e very single weekday last week had more cases than any other single day since February 10 and every single weekday last week had more than 70% more cases than the average day from that same 39 day window.  T he week's average daily increase was alread y close to that of the week of Feb 7's on Monday but it has climbed quite a bit since then and has surpassed it.   In terms of our first wave, every weekday last week now is higher than all but 11 days last April and the average for the whole week is more than all but 2 weeks in that first wave. And in case you're wond ering if these are small increases week over week, they're not.  T he last 2 weeks have seen more than 17% increases in cases from the preceding week, with last week being 20% m...

Yesterday, I predicted that by the end of the week, we'd see that last week would have marked a second week in a row of increased cases.  We didn't have to wait long for that prediction to be proven true.  Last week now stands at 1,456.14 cases per day, which is a 5% increase above the previous week.... and the numbers for last week will likely continue to increase for a few more days.  In fact, yesterday I mentioned that I wasn't sure if we would reach mid Feb levels of 1,486-1,502... that now seems highly likely and will replace my prediction from yesterday.  We still may not reach early Feb levels (1,793-2,367) for last week but given that we just re-opened even further starting today, and given how quickly we've started increasing again, I wouldn't be surprised if we surpass those levels next week. Stay safe. Stay sane. Stay informed.

Well, we're definitely increasing cases again... last week is now known to have had at least a 22% increase in cases over the previous week... and the two of those weeks are current the top two case count weeks.  4876 average daily cases for the week of Dec 27 and 5,988 average daily cases (and rising) for the week of Jan 3. We haven't seen a single day when fewer than 50 people died since December 16 and the average for the last two weeks are 71.14 and 70.28... for comparison, we didn't have a single day where more than 30 people died from June 22 through November 10th... and in that same time frame, we had an daily average of 16.14. Essentially, by doing nearly nothing to crack down on the spread and relying nearly completely on the vaccine, Gov Baker is saying he's ok with all of this death and harm being done to those he is supposed to serve. Stay safe. Stay sane. Stay informed.

So, let's start with a follow up on my prediction from last week that we'd reach 400,000 cases by Jan 15.  We now know that we reached it by Jan 6.  It took us 100 days to go from 3 cases to 100,000 (skipping the first 35 days where we didn't see cases coming in every day), 162 days to get from 100,000 to 200,000 (you know, back when we pretended we cared that people were getting sick), 26 days to go from 200,000 to 300,000, and then only 22 days to go from 300,000 to 400,000. Our 7-day average for the week of Dec 27 is now easily our highest at 4,867 and, even with the 6th day available currently being at 355 and expected to climb to be several thousand, this past week is already a close second at 4,672 (average of 6 days) which shows that this wasn't just a blip.  The third highest was 4,630 and was for the week of Nov 29, just for reference.  I expect we'll know this past week was another record breaker by this Wednesday (even though it will still be increasing a...